THEN YOU MUST BE CONSISTENT
As an addendum to my post on war
and killing I would like to present you with a fact that presents your view
with a stark choice. If you believe that killing is necessary sometimes to
protect people and lifestyles than you must incorporate all that view entails.
Imagine you were living in Nazi
Germany and you were a believer and you were hiding two certain Jews who were
sought after by the Nazis. They had been sentenced to the ovens but they ran to
your house and you took them in. Well the SS came to your house and busted in
your door and headed for the closet in which the Jews were hiding. Would you be
justified in using violence to protect those innocent Jews? If you had a gun
would you as a believer use it to defend and protect them?
Many believers would say yes to
that question. They would use force to protect innocent life even though they
would be breaking Nazi law. Well do you today believe life begins at
conception? If so then abortion is murder and it is happening all over the
country. And it is legal. But if you believe violence can and should be used to
protect and defend innocent lives, then you have an obligation to do so by
preventing abortion even though it would be against the law.
If you can support killing many
thousands of miles away because that country “might” present a danger down the
road, how can you sit by and allow the murder of millions of unborn babies
happening in the present? The hypocrisy of such a position is obvious. But what
does that reveal about the church’s position? It shows that the church’s
position concerning war is due to a nationalistic culture and not Scripture.
Believers will enthusiastically support any war that the government deems “necessary”
but they will only talk about the evils of abortion.
What else does it reveal when
believers will go to war to prevent something but allow abortion in their
midst? It reveals that they are embroiled in hedonism. You see they support war
because they fear their lifestyles may be in jeopardy, but their lives can be
lived without intrusion even when abortions number in the millions. So if my
material goods or even my family’s lives are at stake I can kill the enemy, but
if murder is being performed and paid for in my midst I can live with it as
long as my material goods and my family’s lives are not at stake.
Ok class, what do we call that?
Hypocrisy. You see, killing is not the way of Jesus.
By the way, China has the largest
number of abortions in the world, and if your view of killing people to prevent
them from killing others is consistent we should go to war with China or the
number two country Russia or the number three country Vietnam. The United
States is number four on that list. If the Revolutionary War was the way of
Jesus because we resisted taxes without representation, then how much more
would Jesus approve of a violent overthrow of the United States government who
slaughters millions of unborn babies?
You see, when you attempt to
measure the teachings of Jesus through the world’s measuring cup all you have
is a sieve.
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4 comments:
I suppose the reality is that we are only preoccupied with our own comfort and pride. Cowardly too - only attacking those who can't fight back, those who are defenseless, except for the fact that they are not - there will be a day when God himself will punish those who bully and oppress, who use murder to further their own agenda.
As the saying goes, kill 1 person ; go to jail, kill 1000 ; gain an official title of honor.
As for the Nazi Germany example, I guess there's never any excuse for killing - but life on earth is about choices. For the privileged few, it's choices between good or bad, but for most of us, we only get to choose between several bad
options.
It's all true.
We know that humans need governance, because if there was none, there would be no order. We have to have laws and obey them and as we live in a sinful world there will always be dictators and evil men who would try to run roughshod over the world, and nations must have a military for self-defense. Our sin-nature demands it.
What is so shocking is hearing quite a great number of christians never talk about depending on the Lord, or leaning on Him with their lives. It's like they put Him in a box on a shelf and when they need Him for a job promotion, they'll take time to pray, but when there is conflict in nations that could erupt and involve the West, praying and fasting is out of the question. They suddenly don't have faith that He will supply - but call on men to fight their battles.
There is definitely a spirit of hypocrisy that has overcome the minds of quite a few christians. They are ripe for following a cult leader. They can't distinguish between their dependence on the world with their dependence on God. Casting all our cares on Him, for He cares for us, is no longer believed. They prefer to cast all their cares on worldly leaders, and systems and governments.
And when their system, which supports democratic elections, elects a man that does not talk a great talk about being a devoted christian, they trash that administration and claim that God is angry now and suddenly abortions warrant God's wrath, or suddenly sodomy warrants God's wrath. But international king-making (which takes many innocent lives) doesn't warrant God's wrath?
If our nations have so many women who are willing to abort their unborn babies, then we as a society are wicked. It's wickedness to live in a society that allows a woman to choose death for her unborn child. It's wickedness that governments supply these women with specialists to perform it. There's a war going on in our own back yards and we (the church) have a nerve to accuse other nations of human rights atrocities?
The blood-bought church of Jesus Christ was never never meant to be a moral crusade institution. Many christians today are lying to the world by stating that they get their authority from the bible - that they have the right to Lord it over others; they feel secure in numbers and military might. They don't show one iota of reliance on God. They are repelling people away from the true Christ and preventing souls from entering the Kingdom of Heaven. Unless the Lord intervenes in this false church that calls itself by His precious Name, there will be a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth, I'm afraid.
J.
The sinful nature of certain people demands a military but the new creation of God doesn't.
A true Christian trusts the LORD God as Their defender. Not only do they trust God as Their defender but they employ good to overcome evil, for God's will for His saints is to overcome evil with good!
True Christians are desirous to be peacemakers, following the example of the Prince of Peace, Lord Jesus.
Reine Gnade
We recognize that every good thing we have is God's sovereign gift. How strange we consider violence is justified to KEEP it. Didn't Jesus say "...whoever takes away what is yours, do not demand it back" (Luke 6:30) ?
The idea of "restorative violence:" that some evils are so great they can ONLY be set right by violence: seems rather disbelief in God's sovereignty and power.
In Jesus, Steve
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